Stream of Consciousness Writing

Often, when I try to sit and write, I have challenges…

One challenge is a strange kind writer’s block that I think of as “bottlenecking.” I have so many ideas about what to write about trying to fight their way to the surface, yet I only have one set of hands to type with. In summoning something forth, everything tries to come out at once and stumbles over each other getting all jammed up at the bottleneck of my linear language capacities, such that none of it comes out effectively.

Another challenge I face is over-editing - being so perfectionistic that I spend minutes writing, rewriting, editing and re-editing the same sentence trying to get it right. This of course only exacerbates the bottlenecking issue making it that much more difficult to get the words flowing freely.

When I am struck with these afflictions, one successful strategy that I’ve employed involves typing blind. I am extremely grateful for the ability to touch type without having to look at the keyboard. I can close my eyes and let the words flow - full of typos and all. I can let a cfew ideas tumble out, and then come back later to edit spelling or sense.

Of course, this only works for typing. So I have to have a computer - preferably a laptop whose screen I can fold down so that I can’t see the output of my own streaming consciousness.

This month of writing, which also involves publishing things even if they are not fully complete or edited, is probably and important addition to this workflow.

So… let’s hear it for prioritizing sharing over getting it right! :)